On Monday, Australia reported at least 18 COVID-19 deaths, including 11 in New South Wales (NSW) and six in South Australia. Also, Western Australia reported five historical deaths.
The Australian Capital Territory reported 119 people with COVID-19 in hospitals - its highest since the pandemic began in January 2020.
NSW and Queensland have been seeing a rise in hospitalisations since the beginning of this month.
Check the latest COVID-19 trends for new cases, hospitalisations and deaths in Australia here.
Researchers at Monash University claimed Australia saw more people with COVID-19 in ICU and deaths during the third or Delta wave between June and November 2021 compared with the previous two.
They found that the median age of patients declined across the three waves. Delta is likely to have caused severe disease in younger people than the previous strains, which had been a more significant threat to those aged 60 and over.
Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said traces of BA.4 and BA.5, two sublineages of the Omicron variant, have risen in metro and regional wastewater across the state.
Professor Sutton said they expect an increase in cases, including reinfections, and hospitalisations.
He said BA.4 and BA.5 have greater abilities than BA.2 (the currently dominating sublineage) to evade immunity from previous COVID-19 infection and vaccination. However, there is no evidence that BA.4 and BA.5 cause more severe disease.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has stopped short of calling the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) similar to COVID-19.
The WHO said the outbreak requires “coordinated action” to stop the further spread of the virus using measures such as surveillance, contact-tracing, isolation and care of patients.
Monkeypox has been detected in more than 50 countries, including Australia.
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